What's a Gawker? Fox News chief Roger Ailes would like to know, because he is in the news business and has no time for such frivolities as "web sites" or "web logs." Yesterday, after a Fox News associate producer was dismissed (with pay, he says!) for talking trash about the news channel on Gawker, Ailes was asked for his thoughts about the so-called "Gawker mole." "What is Gawker? Is that that pornographic website?" Ailes asked The Hollywood Reporter. "I only knew it as a pornographic website that everyone said you have to stay away from."
Ailes went on to say, "I don't know anything about it. I don't care if we have a mole, because we're not doing anything wrong." And yet, the mole was swiftly terminated, less than 24 hours after Gawker announced its newest hire, a Fox News Channel employee who promised to provide the porn site with "regular dispatches from inside the organization." By the end of business yesterday, one Joe Muto, an 8 year veteran of Fox, was summoned into a meeting with Dianne Brandi, the Fox News Executive Vice President of Legal and Business Affairs, and, he says, suspended indefinitely. He immediately proceeded to Gawker's office/porn studio, where he blogged thus:
In the end, it was the digital trail that gave me away. They knew that someone, using my computer login, had accessed the sources for two videos that ended up on Gawker over the past few weeks. They couldn't prove it entirely, but I was pretty much the only suspect.
I am a weasel, a traitor, a sell-out and every bad word you can throw at me... but as of today, I am free, and I am ready to tell my story, which I wasn't able to fully do for the previous 36 hours. Stay tuned for much, much more tomorrow.
A Fox News spokesperson tells Mediaite that Muto is actually fired, not suspended, and that the network is "continuing to explore legal action." (In the blog game, that translates to "continuing to generate page views for Gawker.") By the way, while Muto's first Gawker post isn't particularly entertaining, the comments certainly are good for a laugh. The first one comes from a former employee of "Fox Nation," who is sticking up for the poor, betrayed network: "May I say on behalf of the FNC family: you are an ungrateful bastard." Yes, yes, bastards all. But good luck finding anybody who isn't a bastard in the porn industry these days! It's video, dude.
